


Christmas Mornings

by Bodldops



Category: Amelia Peabody - Elizabeth Peters
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 03:06:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5480975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodldops/pseuds/Bodldops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heavens knows Ramses makes enough poor choices in his life that he has plenty of time to regret them.  Some choices, however, he will never regret or renounce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Mornings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RileyC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/gifts).



_1898_

Ramses woke on Christmas morning, and immediately regretted the action. The rather… eventful attack on the carriage and his subsequent misguided and rather cursed attempt at rescue was only a few weeks past.  While the bruises were fading nicely, the crack he’d taken to the head was a rather slower affair. He was finding recovery from his injuries tiresome to the extreme (though he would not dare breathe a word about it where his Aunt and Uncle might hear, for fear that it might precipitate some misguided notion that he would be better staying in bed until healed).

He would not miss the headaches, however, once they were past. Some selfish part of himself didn’t mind them quite so much as he really ought, due to how SHE would come, as a ministering angel, if she realized his head was aching again. That she was so solicitous soothed his wounded pride as well, though that particular feeling he did his best to repress manfully. After all, it did neither HER nor himself credit.

Besides the leaden thumping ache that he has become all too familiar with, the room beyond the pocket of warmth under his blankets was cold. He had woken before the maid had come to light the fire (or she was dawdling - she hadn’t much appreciated his last experiment and had been quite hysterical about the whole thing. Uncle Walter had been rather insulting on that occasion). It wasn’t his Aunt’s and Uncle’s fault. After all, he had wanted to stay with HER, and he knew full well that an Egyptian winter was an altogether different thing than an English one.

Ramses wished, and not for the first time, that he was in Egypt with his parents, where it did not become so horribly cold in the winter, never mind how it would relieve his worry about a great many things, including why his father had yet to write back to him, or the danger both his father and mother seemed to be in at this time. Still, it gave Nefret the chance to experience an English Christmas in its native setting, which… well, he never thought to miss such a thing, but perhaps she might want to experience it. It would be quite the experience. Knowing they were effectively introducing Nefret to the whole thing, the entire house had been turned into something out of a Dickens novel, with evergreen and ivy, ribbons and bows and candles and every other thing that could possibly be imagined. The housemaids had been continuously underfoot the last few days in a veritable whirlwind of decorating.

A sudden, horrifying thought occurred to him. What if she preferred this to what was to him the more familiar pleasures of Christmas in Egypt? Caroling and yule logs, frosty air and proper Christmas trees? The young boy was torn between a sudden desire to do all he could to undermine the smooth workings of the household to bring about utter Christmas destruction, and horror at the very thought of doing such a thing and ruining the experience for HER.

Torn with indecision, and his headache made worse for the emotional turmoil, Ramses was rather quiet and subdued for breakfast and church… which his Aunt and Uncle took as something of a Christmas miracle.

_1903_

Rames woke on Christmas morning, and immediately regretted the action. Imagination was a cruel thing, it seemed, and he was quite unready to leave the rather enchanting dream he’d been having. One would think after an entire summer season spent living the sort of life found in the more exciting sorts of adventure stories that his now years-long occupation would have… well. At least dampened down some.

This was most emphatically not the case. Of course, the near-constant example of the painfully ubiquitous Molly to contrast romantic interest versus sisterly love was particular disheartening.  Cautiously he turned to contemplate the pale pre-dawn light outside.  His room seemed empty without Bastet - this was illogical, he knew. After all, more often than not she would not be there when he awoke, as she would have serious business to do in the garden patrolling for mice or in the kitchens getting her due of fresh cream or in front of someone's lit fireplace, soaking up the heat.  Of course, it seemed empty due to someone else not being there, but that was even more illogical.  Even though he'd heard plenty growing up about love at first sight, no one even hinted that such a thing was possible between him and Nefret.

What neither of his parents seemed to knew was it seemed to be a curse of their family.  How else to explain how one girl, one woman now (no one could mistake her for a girl, no one with half a brain anyway), could captivate his heart for years and refuse to let it go?  He had tried to escape its grasp, but in vain.

And she thought of him as a brother.  Amusing, loved, trusted... but the dreams he had of her were certainly inappropriate in that light!  He wasn't entirely sure how he was going to make it through this season, in all truth.  He had hoped that he wouldn't feel so strongly, and thus had not made alternate plans to work in another archaeologist's camp.  He knew his father would feel betrayed if he didn't help with the family dig, but... well.  If this continued, he'd have to rethink his plan.  There was no possible way he could survive another season like this.

Groaning, he contemplated the day before him, full of well-intended but torturous sisterly kisses, and tries to plot how best to feign an illness both debilitating enough to keep him in bed but mild enough to  _not_ pique Nefret's medical interest.

_1910_

Ramses woke on Christmas morning, and immediately regretted the action. Once back in Egypt he had been handed over to Fatima for a brutal chastising and liberal application of her famous green paste. If there had been some oral form, he’s pretty sure that would be forced upon him as well, as the effects of the illness he’d only just been recovering from were slow to resolve. His only consolation was that David had been subjected to the same treatment. Misery does so love company.

He’d thought he’d finally seen the last of the nasty disease and the weakness that accompanied it, but there was an ache in his head and his chest that he was becoming entirely too familiar with.  He groaned - the tight watch he'd only just begun to convince his family to relax would be back in spades, he was sure.  His mother would fret, his father would find ways to keep him away from the dig, David would refuse to sneak him something to drink (anything to make a change from the medicinal teas that would be poured down his throat!), and Nefret... he would worry Nefret.  If by sheer willpower he could defeat this dratted illness in a moment he would, just to avoid doing that unthinkable thing.

He would just have to tough it out.  Get dressed, sit up straight at the breakfast table, eat the... oh Lord, it was Christmas, there would be all varieties of rich food he was sure.  Just the  _thought_ of kippers made him feel horrid.

Maybe they'd fall under attack by someone.  Maybe there would be a tomb robbery, requiring (either in reality or in fervidly-held belief) his father's presence, and thus all of theirs.  Probably not - not even the Master Criminal would be so obliging.  

_ 1914  _

Rames woke on Christmas morning, and immediately regretted the action. For a moment, he honestly believed his back is on fire, his breath caught somewhere in the back of his throat, stifling the whine that wants to escape. When memory returned, it brings with it the realization that once again, this was his own fault. He cannot bring himself to curse his over-rash encouragement of Nefret last night (nor will he ever be able to, he will forever refer to it as the best Christmas present ever received). His back, however, has felt better. His back, his hands, his wrists, the lesser aches of abused muscles and the still-nagging pull of the healing bullet wound… he’s certainly felt better. 

Physically, anyway. 

However, the steady weight on his arm and chest, the warmth beside him that is both achingly familiar and shockingly not, the cascade of golden hair he can just see if he peers down his nose… Nefret’s breathing was steady, and after a few moments he decided that his waking did not wake her in turn. Thus assured, he indulged himself in the most ridiculously sappy smile, staring up at the ceiling and marveling at his sudden glut of good fortune. His mission was finished, the revolution effectively squashed, the canal as safe as he could possibly make it of his own accord (and he strongly suspects the threat to it is over – if the Turks were coming, surely they would have heard of it by now), David is back home (battered and in as poor condition as he can ever remember David being, it will be some time before he will be able to forgive himself for bringing his brother to such a low), his cousin is (hopefully) dead, and Nefret… 

He could have cried last night, when he realized that she was real, that it was her lips on his, her hands cradling his head. He had thought her a dream, a hallucination brought on by pain and increasing blood loss. Then he’d briefly thought it was some cruel last game played by his cousin, but he could hardly imagine Percy would let him have his hands free again after putting so much effort into getting them tied properly. After that terror, he’d been severely disinclined to let her go again. If there were now agents of the British government who thought him too weak to stand on his own feet, or somehow failing in nerve, let them. 

_Idiots_ , the lot of them. 

One doesn’t let go of an angel if she deigns to forgive you of your sins. After a long moment he decides the laudanum that Nefret forced upon him eventually last night must still be in his system if he actually pieced together that overwrought description and felt it normal. He will have to be very careful of his drinks in the coming days. Between Nefret and his mother, there is a very good chance he will be spending most of it unconscious. 

_ 1916  _

Rames woke on Christmas morning, and didn’t regret it in the slightest. Carefully he shifted, wary of waking Nefret at his side. She’d been tired lately, more than usual, though she’d brushed it off as the logical after-effects of the stress of dealing with his adventures. In this moment, as dawn’s light just started to filter through the windows, he could study her sleeping face to his heart’s content. Still unsure how he has become quite so lucky (and completely unwilling to protest it), he gently re-arranged her golden hair, pushing back behind her ears, revealing the arch of cheekbones and the line of her throat, still as captivating as the day he met her. 

He’s hopeless. He knew it, and even if he ever had the chance to forget, someone (likely David) would remind him. 

In this quiet moment, he wondered. He felt, well, hoped, that Nefet wouldn’t hide anything important from him. There are those little things, however – the uncharacteristic weariness, a subtle but noticeable change in dietary choices, a snappishness that he could see flustered her once it passed… well, those, and the way she’d turned positively green when he’d gotten his boots off after the interminable car ride coming back from Gaza. It’d only been for a moment, but he knew his wife has seen (and smelled) worse during her work in the Red Blind district. 

Could he be a father? 

Heavens knows he wouldn’t ask until she brought up the subject. She was in much better position than him to know, after all, as well as much better equipped to ensure that she was in no danger. It didn’t stop him from being utterly terrified by the whole thing, even while being utterly in love with the idea. He must have tensed, or made some sound – sleepily Nefret stretches, her gorgeous sky-blue eyes studying him back with amusement. 

“So serious, for so early in the morning.” She murmured, her thumb brushing against his lips, tugging at the corner. Her laugh was music when he (quite rightfully, he feels!) turned his head to chase it, kissing her hand and wrist in turn. 

“I was contemplating a text I was translating the other day.” He offered, unwilling to leave this small world of their bed to face the oncoming day. 

“Oh? And what was the weighty subject?” She teased in return, tugging him closer to steal a kiss. 

“She looks like the rising morning star, At the start of a happy year. Shining bright, fair of skin, Lovely the look of her eyes…” He intonated, his voice deepening to a low rumble when she laughs again, delighted. And if in the course of the poem and suiting action to words and the actions that come after they are both horribly late for breakfast… well. 

No one much seems to mind.


End file.
